Sophists, Women, and Ancient Greece ENG 3306 History of Rhetoric Dr. Carol Johnson-Gerendas Sources: Glenn, Cheryl. Rhetoric Retold: Regendering the Tradition from Antiquity Through the Renaissance, Goden, Berquist, Coleman, Sproule. The Rhetoric of Western Thought, Hertzberg and Bizzell. The Rhetorical Tradition.

Comparative History: THE GREEKSTHE GREEKS Hebrew HistoryGreek Rhetorical History Abraham 2,000 B.C.E. Moses 1,500 B.C.E. David 1,000 B.C.E. Babylonian Captivity 500 B.C. Intertestamental Period 400 B.C. Christ 3 B.C.E. Lack of Shared Experience Pre-Socratics: 700 & 600 B.C.E – Mythos replaced with Logos ▫Milesians: introduce idea of cosmic order and natural law Early Sophists ▫Relativism ▫Oratory ▫Style & Ornament

Three Kinds of Speeches Epideictic (ceremonial, commemorate, or blame) Forensic (to accuse or defend) Deliberative (legislative, to exhort or dissuade)

Five Canons of Rhetoric (adapted from Cicero, De Oratore, I.xxxi ) Invention: (discover what to say; e.g. Aristotle’s topoi, proofs, commonplaces, fallacies) Arrangement: (“marshal discoveries in orderly fashion”) Style: (adorn them with appropriate stylistic language) Memory: (keep all guarded in one’s memory) Delivery: (deliver all with “effect and charm”)

Three Rhetorical Appeals Ethos Pathos Logos

Sophists: Kairos (seizing the right moment to speak) Invention ▫Heuresis (discovery, to find) Arrangement ▫Judicial: proem, narration, proof, epilogue Style ▫Ornament, flowery language Sophists  Compiled collections of common places  Compiled glossaries of beautiful words (metaphors, similes, phrases)

Socrates Introduction to SocratesIntroduction to Socrates - and the Sophists Knowledge vs. Negligence

The School of Athens – Raphael - Renaissance

Women in Ancient Greece Women could testify—but not argue Aspasia-mistress & companion to Pericles, most powerful Athenian 40 yrs.; loved sophists, philosophers, artists Foreign-born women or men could never be citizens—could have political influence

Phryne The Rhetoric of Gesture From: Audrey Kali, “Phryne and the Rhetoric of Gesture,” The Rhetoric of the Western Tradition, p.49 Gerome, PhryneGerome, Phryne In Front of the Judges, 1861, oil paintingIn Front of the Judges, 1861, oil painting “As Hyperides, while defending Phryne, was making no progress in his plea, and it became apparent that the judges meant to condemn her, he caused her to be brought out where all could see her; tearing off her undervests he laid bare her bosom and broke into such piteous lamentation in peroration at the sight of her, that he caused the judges to feel superstitious fear of this handmaid and ministrant of Aphrodite, and indulging their feeling of compassion, they refrained from putting her to death.” (Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists ).

DISCUSS: The Case of Phryne Lamentation, plea of supplication Disrobing – act of exposure Imagistic rhetorical power Magic of nudity Phryne / Aphrodite connection Efficacy of rhetorical gestures?

Aspasia of Miletus Mentioned by her male contemporaries Plutarch’s Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans (AD 100) Fresco over portal at the University of Athens